1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the management of business systems. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a method, apparatus, and computer program product for providing end-to-end management of business systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Managing a customer's business systems is a difficult task. Business systems comprise interrelated components, such as hardware, software, networks, data, connections, databases, processes, and procedures. Business processes may use multiple technologies of disparate types. Business processes may also span multiple lines of business both internally and externally, and may be managed by disjoint groups with little systems management integration. The scope of management for business systems is generally narrow, and typically extends no further than problem management or addressing incidents, where teams of people are assigned to resolve the issues and follow up with a root cause analysis. Current methods do not completely address the business enterprise from an end-to-end perspective. To properly address the business from an end-to-end perspective, all aspects of the business system must be considered at an enterprise-level. A customer's enterprise is defined as the sum of that customer's Information Technology (IT) environment. Such an enterprise may be comprised solely out of components from a single traditional IT management tower, or out of components from any combination of “towers” including distributed, midrange, and host environments. At the most detailed level, any processor (e.g. components 104, 106, and 108 in FIG. 1 and 200 in FIG. 2) is an example of “tower”. In this context “towers” are realms of organizational responsibility. In IT management environments, towers are traditionally organized by technology type.
Events that affect the operation of the business system need to be managed. An event represents a change in the state of a component of a business system that could impact the operation of the business system. The following examples are provided to illustrate several of different types of events, but these examples are not meant to be exhaustive. An event, for example, could reference the availability of a web-based business process via a systems management monitor that is monitoring the up or down status of an HTTP daemon running on a web server that is a component part of the process. In another example, an event could reference the performance of a web-based business process via a systems management monitor that is monitoring the amount of free CPU cycles available on a server that is a component part of the process. An event could also be a news wire flash that indicates a change in the stock market that could ultimately have impact upon a business process or function.
Methods for addressing events have evolved from previous management models, which were infrastructure-centric, tower-oriented, and highly segmented. Many issues are not addressed by current methods. For example, in many cases the technology components are managed along tower boundaries and thus relationships between those events (symptoms vs. cause) are not known. This can result in erroneous action. Additionally, existing processes for event management may have no context as to how the business process is actually performing based upon the business impact of those events. Providing an event management solution that addresses business process impact enables the management of specific events to be prioritized based on the measurable financial costs of business process disruptions and missed service level targets and commitments. People often do not receive the correct information to support the business before and at the time when an event occurs, which can impact the operation of the business system. Furthermore, enterprise or business system information technology environments are typically comprised of components that are geographically dispersed. As such, existing processes for system management do not usually expand past those same geographic boundaries.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method, apparatus, and computer program product for implementing a business systems management solution for end-to-end event management.